iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

More solid brain melting. Grace Cummings has the voice of God and hearing her sing AC/DC’s Ride On and Fleetwood Mac’s Over My Head is icing on a delicious MMJ cake. Oh and singing along to One Big Holiday with 1300 friends kicks ass. No repeats so far, consensus is we’ll get some for the last 3.

Carl Broemel, Jim James, and Tom Blankenship jamming in a circle. This is one the best Jacket Things, they’re not playing to the crowd just having fun with each other.

Grackle Cummings and Jim James playing Fleetwood Mac. Grace has on a flowy white shirt that is very Stevie Nicks appropriate.

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

The batteries are super low. It’s a standard size prismatic cell on the short side (130 mm) but they did a bunch of work to keep the overall pack at only 150 mm including mounting bus bars on the side. All of the battery is low but some cells are crammed ahead of the firewall.

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Front motor, power electronics, and laid-back radiator.

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

No frunk pics. They said it will have some storage.l but the fact that they didn’t show it suggests it’s charger cord and other small things level of space.

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Well, not sure how they keep kicking it up a level but that was nuts. And then Karina Rykman came out for “Franklin’s Tower” and Radiohead National Anthem. And THEN there was a fucking harp played by Mikaela Davis! And the sound is perfect. This whole operation is totally dialed in.

My Morning Jacket plays “Dear God” by the Monsters of Folk with Mikaela Davis sitting in on harp and oh my god Bo Koster (keyboards) sang a verse I have never seen Bo sing he’s great.

I was not prepared to see a harp at the My Morning Jacket Fillmore residency and almost ended uncontrollably sobbing to “I Will Be There When You Die” like I’m getting choked up now just writing this.

My Morning Jacket playing “The Bear” at the Fillmore Theater in San Francisco on October 6, 2026 and oh wow they have an outline of a bear on the rear projectors.

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

There is a 20-inch that, as one Jag engineer said in jest “you can get if you’re lame.” But they didn’t talk about the range for that or even show the designs. (Note: I am a fan of sidewalls). There will also be a 750-ish hp version to follow.

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

There are four more nights I can find you a ticket!

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Hanging with some friend at the soundboard for night three.

A room full of people ready to get their faces melted off by My Morning Jacket at the Fillmore Ballroom in San Francisco

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Don’t have it in front of me but it’s about 203 inches long, I think 3 shorter than a long wheelbase S Class and 27 inches shorter than a Lincoln Continental Mark V. Don’t remember width but normal modern ev kind of wide, which is really wide.

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Rear seat is not serious. You have to bend and twist to get in and I caught my shoulder on body trim getting out. Once you’re there it has good leg room and the seats feel good. But it’s equivalent to a coupe rear seat, not something to use on the regular at least if it’s an adult back there.

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I think so. On the prototype ice driving I did it has a nice float and appropriate roll but the steering is still precise. I honestly think it’ll be close to a half-price Bentley Continental in a good way.

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I honestly like it more the more I see it. Yeah it’s huge but it leans into the hugeness. Not hiding that’s for sure.

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I think it’s for the body structure? One weak point of the frameless windows is you can see the some or the door structure and seals though the glass.

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Yeah and a separate app. No thanks!

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I am truly the “always the wrong tire for the weather conditions” team of my F1 fantasy league.

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

You could use AI to run your fantasy sports team. Or you could just pick your favorite players, never change the lineup and ignore your mid-pack place in the league. In related news, locking in Charles as my double-points driver every race is a strategy about as good as Ferrari’s pit wall. Hey-o!

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I know of a non-Porsche German carmaker employee with a silver 911 GT3 he didn’t like because of the color. So much so that he sold it and waited until a Mexico Blue one came on the market. He’s strange and amazing in many wonderful ways and I respect the dedication.

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

**made its debut. If you didn't already know, copy editors are regularly saving my life.

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Yes, a new Jaguar that occupies a weird niche in the market. It's amazing how much of this paragraph could be written today.

"So what we have is an admittedly subjective editor's-eye view of a significant new car. Not significant technically. Indeed, there is little new under the new skin. But significant because it is a radical departure from things traditionally Jaguar, and significant because it falls, I think, into a heretofore unoccupied, indeed unexplored, niche between the sedan-like Mercedes 450SLC and the exotic Italian machinery.
I like the XJ-S, but my enthusiasm doesn't go much beyond that. In their attempt to create an ultra-refined, luxurious GT machine, Jaguar engineers have engineered out any personality the car might have had. And the styling-which is basically as originally conceived in 1970-is, well, not good."

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Does a Jaguar entering a new segment, but also "a strange combination" of "refimenent and manners vs sensuality and performance" sound familiar? Plus the XJ-S was expensive at $20,000 but still less than the exotics! (A Cadillac Seville in the same issue started at $12,479.)

"So suffice it to say the XJ-S has the mechanical/technical/engineering pedigree a luxury 2+2 GT car should have, and pending verification by a complete road test, we'll also assume Jaguar's performance figures to be accurate. But what about the car as a whole, as a complete package? With the XJ-S Jaguar has ventured into unfamiliar territory and will be courting an unfamiliar segment of the market. Although Jag marketing types talk of their new creation going head-to-head with the Mercedes 450SLC with a "style and flair the 450SLC doesn't have," it will also attract the attention of Merak, Urraco and Dino buyers. Jaguar apparently doesn't intend for their new car to keep such heady company, but if you put an exotic V-12 engine in an exotic 2+2 GT body, what can you expect? I think there's no question the front-engine XJ-S will be able to more than hold its own in performance with those three mid-engine exotic cars. Its refinement really can't be matched by the Dino, Merak or Urraco and it will cost less than any of that trio. On paper, it's a strong threat. Maybe Jaguar has a double-threat in the XJ-S. But maybe not. The 450SLC and the aforementioned Italian trio represent two ends of the supra-expensive "sporty" car market: refinement and manners vs sensuality and performance. The Jaguar is a strange combination of both which just may not appeal to either segment of the market.

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

What's this? A massive investment in a low-volume halo car that will carry the banner for the brand? Surely that won't happen again 50 years later.

"Although the XJ-S is a new model and although British Leyland—Jaguar's parent company—spent something like $100 miillion tooling up for the new car, it isn't intended to be the great profit leader that will lead the company into fiscal Nirvana. The bread and butter of the Jag line will continue to be the XJ-6/XJ-12 sedans. Last year Jaguar produced 29,000 XJ-6/ 12s and expects to do more this year. Projected production of the new XJ-S is only 2000. Rather, the new car will be a top-of-the-line prestige iece. It will, according to a Jaguar spokesman, "carry the banner for all British Leyland cars."

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

It's New Jaguar Day, so let's go back to R&T October 1976 when another new, "surprising break with tradition" made it's debut. Time is a flat circle etc etc..

The lead photo of a a Jaguar XJ-S feature from the October 1975 issue of Road & Track. The subhead reads: With Italian styling and British manners, Jaguar's "Finest Yet" is a surprising break with tradition.

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Also in classic form GM is like “Nobody is buying the car we barely support with marketing dollars. All our customers want are the trucks we constantly advertise during sports broadcasts!”

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Oh and it’s pronounced “Type Zero One” not “Type Oh One” although I do the latter at least half of the time.

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I will start with two small items. First, I wrote “the charging doors are fucking huge” in my notes. Second, chief engineer Jon Darlington owns a nice Porsche 912. He also was one of the main people behind the Jaguar XE, which drove good.

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I went to the pre-embargo press event for the new Jaguar and am thus R&T’s designated knower of Type 01 things. If you want to know any details, let me know and I’ll answer what I can after embargo time.

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

(And yes I spent the off night of a week of remote work and evening concerts to see another show.)

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Last night I went to Stinson Beach for an intimate concert at the community center and the people that put it on and attended gave me hope for the world. Just a fantastic group of people gathered together with a love of music.

The sun setting over Stinson Beach, California. Of course my pathetic photo skills failed to capture the in-person magic of seeing the sun over a marine layer of clouds but it’s still very pretty.

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Night two somehow rocked even harder. This band is incredible.

My Morning Jacket takes a bow at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco on October 5, 2026. That night’s color theme was orange but the stage lighting shifts the hues in this photo so it’s not as obvious as the red the night before.

Tyler Ballgame joins Jim James on stage for a cover of George Harrison’s Behind That Locked Door. After that Tyler also sang on a cover of Grateful Dead’s Brown Eyed Woman.

Wish you were here (the sentiment, not the song).

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Late, but night one was pretty awesome.

Carl Broemel of My Morning Jacket shredding on the guitar. This was probably during the song Mahgeetah.

Carl Broemel playing saxophone during Steam Engine. Jim James is playing guitar right over Carl’s shoulder because he wanted to go visit his buddy on that side of the stage.

My Morning Jacket takes a bow at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco on October 3, 2026. They all have red somewhere on their clothes because it was a theme.

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

We’ve had to wait so long since Hobbs was in the booth!

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

To be honest I’m not gonna be on my phone during the show.

Mike waited in line for about 10 hours so he could be in the front row and ended up right in front of Carl Broemel’s mic stand.

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Also the Japantown Mall bookstore has the Initial D Eurobeat CDs if anyone wants to send me $60.

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

I will be insufferably posting about My Morning Jacket for the next 8 days.

The Fillmore, with a truck full of road cars being unloaded.

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Enterprise. Only counter with cars at a small airport for a one-way rental.

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I would consider that an upgrade.

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I also recommend 3-5 older-but-running cars. It’s just enough to ensure you will barely have time to wash the main ones and never tackle anything else on the list until suddenly three of them are non-drivable at the same time.

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I’ve been off Bluesky all week due to the proceedings of Road & Track Performance Car of the Year, which is four very long, very fun days. To mark my return to staring at my phone for hours per day, guess which of these three cars I get to drive away from the test?

A silver Mitsubishi Outlander Sport that alleges to be a 2026 but is indistinguishable from a car built in 2012 next to a green Aston Martin Valhalla and a red Corvette Grand Sport.

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Mike Austin @reymiguel.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

I’m at the Bahrain GP. I’m in Malaysia I’m at the combination Gulf Air Bahrain GP in Malaysia.

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TakuroSpirit @takurospirit.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

No one even uses looptid as a word anymore.

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Andy @carbrochureaddict.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

The Alpine marque was founded in 1955, with its A110 Berlinette arriving in 1963. The design was nearing the end of its life by the time of this 1976 Dutch brochure on the Berlinette 1300 and 1600SX. Renault took control of Alpine in 1973, hence its name also now appeared in marketing. #carbluesky

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